Wikia CEO claims profitability, 3x growth
Gil Penchina, chief exec of wiki community hosting company Wikia, says the firm has quietly achieved the main goal that differentiates it from non-profit Wikipedia: It’s making money. In a press release scheduled to go out later today, Wikia will claim profitability, plus a jump… Continue Reading
Poor economy killed Wikia Search
Wikipedia has been one of the biggest successes in the history of the Internet. So has Google. So on paper it makes some sense that combining the two would result in a service that would also be hugely popular. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out so… Continue Reading
Wikia cuts staff by 10 percent
Wikia, a company that provides wiki and search services and was started by Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales, has let go about 10 percent of its employees. The layoffs came as part of a restructuring that will refocus the San Francisco company on sales and marketing…. Continue Reading
Wikia lets companies add their widgets as search results
If you want the most useful information possible to appear in response to a search, why not allow information portals like the community news aggregator Digg and travel site Kayak add it themselves? Search Wikia is opening itself up to allow companies to do just… Continue Reading
Search Wikia returns for more punishment with new features
It seems that all major new search engines undergo a somewhat similar birth. For months before they’re seen, they’re hyped, and anticipation builds to a fever pitch. The phrase “Google Killer” is inevitably bandied about. Then they’re released … to mass disappointment. The crowd disperses,… Continue Reading
Search Wikia takes a step closer to the promise of ’search meets Wikipedia’
When the guy behind Wikipedia launches a search engine, the world is going to watch. And watch they did when Jimmy Wales unveiled Search Wikia in January — perhaps a little too closely. I say that because while some were expecting to see a “Google-killer“,… Continue Reading
Wikia partners with Kaltura to let video makers collaborate
Wikia today announced a partnership with collaborative video site Kaltura that will allow the more than a million users of its MediaWiki software to post and collaborate using Kaltura content.
Kaltura, the self-proclaimed “YouTube meets the Wiki” (previous coverage here and here ), has a video extension that lets… Continue Reading
Search Wikia launches: Will it threaten Google?
[Update: See our subsequent post here, which includes a deeper look, after Search Wikia gets slammed by other initial reviews]
Search Wikia, a new search engine site, has launched publicly after two weeks of private testing.
The search engine has been highly anticipated for its unique, open-source… Continue Reading
Wikia to launch new social search engine, more on Monday
Search Wikia, the highly anticipated search engine by Wikia, the for-profit company of Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, will launch publicly on Monday. It is currently in private testing mode, and we’ll write more upon launch.
The huge success of Wikipedia in mobilizing humans makes this project… Continue Reading
Roundup: Veoh sues, MySpace’s tiny profit, Nirvanix, Wikipedia’s color-coding, more
Here’s the latest action:
Veoh Networks files preemptive suit against Universal Music Group — Veoh, the San Diego video start-up we’ve written about, said it filed the suit to assert its rights as a copyright-compliant company after UMG threatened it with litigation.
Geni gets cloned by a German… Continue Reading
Roundup: Murdoch closer on WSJ, Scoop Bar, Wikia-Grub, Hitachi and more
Here’s the latest action:
Murdoch appears to have enough Bancroft family support for purchase –The jury is still officially out, but the NYT is saying it looks like Dow Jones and its jewel, the Wall Street Journal, will indeed to go to Murdoch’s News Corp.
Hakia’s Scoop Bar —… Continue Reading
TextDigger, Hakia say they can improve search
TextDigger is the latest company seeking that Holy Grail: Improving on Google’s results by understanding the sense of the words you’re looking for.
TextDigger’s search engine is called Digger, and it just launched at the DEMO conference.
First, some context: Digger, of San Jose, joins Powerset, the… Continue Reading
The significant response to wiki search idea
Wikia.com, the Silicon Valley company that is building an electronic library on hundreds of thousands of topics, has received a significant interest in its open search engine idea.
Wikia heard from 700 engineers volunteering help to build the search engine — and that interest was generated… Continue Reading
Wikia’s coffers, Browster dies, closed Dash, Techdirt’s $, and RepoMan Redux
Roundup of the latest Silicon Valley action:
Browster, dies — The web 2.0 carnage is beginning to pile up. This week’s casualty is San Francisco’s Browster, the company that wanted to save you time by popping up a little image of a page when you scrolled over… Continue Reading
Wikia to launch social search engine — amid a sea of others
Wikia, the San Mateo start-up founded by Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales, is working on a search engine that will use the same strategy as Wikipedia’s user-reliant encyclopedia.
The project is secretive, but has a preliminary launch date of the first quarter of 2007, the Times of London… Continue Reading
Amazon takes major stake in Wikia
Wikia, a San Mateo company that allows groups to share information about their interests with wiki technology, has raised a second round of funding — all of it coming from Amazon.com.
It is not clear how much traction Wikia company has gained. The company says more… Continue Reading